Or at least some of it has no basis of fact to support it. But some digression first. So, e/r home I swung by the Friends of the Public Library bookstore and picked up an old book on Weapons & Tactics. I felt I needed to diversify and shouldn't read about scalping & sniping all the time.

Here's what the (circa '41) book says about the Royal Americans: "The British Army needed to produce soldiers who could meet the Indian allies of the French on equal terms; this need led to the formation of our Royal American Rifles, the first modern infantry. These forerunners of the rifle brigade wore a uniform designed to hide a man wearing it. All previous uniforms, from the liveries of the royal guards or noblemen's retinue, through the red coats of Cromwell's troops, to the elaborate and desperately uncomfortable kit of Geroge the Third's infantry, had been designed to largely to make the wears obvious. In battles that we like large and brutal games in the open fields, commanders and men needed to know who was on their side and who was against them. The uniforms they wore were, therefore brightly coloured, like the jerseys worn by football teams. They were also often elaborate, even decorative, partly because it was considered good for drilling men into automata to make them slave at polishing buttons and other gear; partly because othe richness of uniforms showed the wealth and therfore the fighting resources of the autocrat at whose servce was the man within the uniform. Uniforms of this sort was a hopeless handicap in the forests of America. The Rifles, therefore, wore green jackets. And they wore black buttons, as their inheritors do to this day.

Thankfully we have modern historians and researchers who can correct these mistakes. If you're curious and want to learn more about the Royal Americans, check out Bedtime Stories at THR.

More research reveals that the statement is correct with respects to 5/60, which was raised in 1797; decades after the first four battalions which were raised Dec. 1755.